Fun and Games in Wisconsin

Ah, things are not always what they seem. Check this out:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/21/947947/-The-Koch-Brothers-End-Game-in-Wisconsin

So much for any principals they, the Koch brothers, might promote.

Don't forget to place your vote. I voted the first alternative, but hey, if the Democrats do connect the dots...

A Letter to the President

Yesterday I sent this letter to President Obama:

The President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

My name is_____________.

I will not vote for you.

I voted for you in 2008. I will not vote for you. Neither will I vote for any Democrat, whom I have loyally supported in the past.

You can raise a trillion dollars for your reelection, Mr. President, and I will not vote for you.

Sincerely,

x_____________

I have sent similar letters to my Democratic Representative, and my Democratic Senator

Granted it’s a little short on explanation.

The explanation is basically here

I had hoped that Mr. Obama’s election would provide a remedy to what I see as happening to this country. I know now that it did not. I believe now that in fact there is no real opportunity, through the democratic process as it is now, to change things. I, and those like me, simply do not have the attention of our rulers.

I am not wealthy. I am not one of them.

As long as I continue vote, they will ignore me, and what I have to say. They may nod, but they will not act. As long as I continue to vote, I am playing the game by their rules. They are winning, and I am losing. And my country deteriorates, its heritage mocked and its future squandered.

Only if I, and millions of others like me, refuse to continue to participate in this charade of a democracy, will they pay attention. To us. And to the law.

The choice is yours. You can continue to vote, and have your voice ignored, or you can send them a letter, and refuse to vote for them. Any of them. And tell your friends, that you have done this. That you have sent the President a letter, and that you will refuse to vote for him, or any of them. That you refuse to consent to what has become essentially a kleptocracy, a nation governed by theft, where the poor and middle class, the worker, the people, are essentially being robbed, even of what they still have. Where you are essentially being robbed, of both rights and wealth, even of what you still have.

Even if they have not come for you yet, they will. They cannot help it. They cannot stop themselves. Even if you do not yet bear the burden of debt, you will. Only the very few, will have anything left for themselves. You already have less than you know, for the debt of your government is your debt. And who do you owe?

If you are satisfied with the occasional bone they may throw you, be satisfied. Play your part in their game, if you think thereby to prosper. Vote.

If not, then do what I am doing, and what I have done, and what I will do. Refuse to vote for any of them.

Send the President a letter. And tell your friends, your fellow citizens, who are also being robbed, of both rights and wealth, even of what they still have.

Only in this way can we recapture the government for the people. For ourselves.

Refuse to vote for any of them.

Send the President a letter.

And tell your friends, your fellow citizens.

Why No One on Wall Street Goes to Jail

If you doubt my assertions
here

Read this:

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/02/taibbi-on-why-no-one-on-wall-street-goes-to-jail.html

This should make you mad.

An Observation on Marginal Revenue and Elasticity

In the linear case: The slope of the Marginal Revenue MR curve (for a firm in imperfect competition) is twice as steep as the Average Revenue AR curve, (which is equal to the Demand curve.) This means the intersect of the MR curve with the Quantity axis is at the midpoint of the intersect of the AR curve with that axis. But this is the coordinate Q on the Quantity axis of the unit price elasticity on the Demand curve, which always lies on the midpoint of a straight line Demand curve. And this is the point where total revenue = P x Q is maximized. Thus the point of unit elasticity ( e = 1 ) is the point where total revenue is maximized. I probably read this somewhere.

Things are Worse than they Look

Here are a couple of neat pointers: The first goes to a article at a good blog, which points to an interactive feature at the EPI (Economic Policy Institute) website.

http://crookedtimber.org/2011/02/10/income-growth-shares-over-time/

A commenter at CT links to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A

a lecture by Elizabeth Warren titled: “The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class: Higher Risks, Lower Rewards, and a Shrinking Safety Net.” This is a good and informative lecture. Well worth the time.

Upside Down: Who the Government Really Gives To

Here's a nice little paper that ties in with my recent post "Our
Government is Captive of the Wealthy"

http://cfed.org/assets/pdfs/UpsideDown_final.pdf

Here's the little blurb on the CFED site pointing to the paper:

"Among the most compelling findings included in the report is that of the nearly $400 billion spend by the federal government in 2009, most funds went toward tax breaks. However, more than half of these breaks went to the wealthiest five percent of taxpayers, who averaged a net benefit of $95,000 each. On the other hand, less than 5% of the federal expenditures benefitted the Americans earning the least. The bottom 60% of taxpayers averaged just $5 each.

This finding and a series of others likely evoke immediate frustration, pointing to yet another barrier keeping low- and moderate-income Americans from getting ahead and achieving the American dream. Yet, with this information comes unprecedented opportunity. As CFED Founder and Board Chair Robert Friedman elucidates, “Taken together, this suggests we have a monumental opportunity not only to save by curbing existing ineffective tax incentives, but to increase net savings significantly by extending effective incentives to the asset-poor majority.”"

The government taketh away. The government giveth.

Equal Opportunity

The Right says it favors equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcomes. But equality of opportunity requires equality of capitalization, which the Right is not really in favor of. Opportunity requires the availability of resources.

Equal opportunity is impossible with a mal-distribution of wealth. The OECD notes “:…lack of equal opportunity may affect the motivation, effort and, ultimately, the productivity of citizens, with adverse effects on the overall efficiency and the growth potential of the economy."

Opportunity is (statistically) proportionate to wealth. Therefore, a greater equality in distribution of opportunity requires a greater equality in distribution of wealth.

Indeed, the distribution of resources producing equality of opportunity and that producing equality of outcomes are the same distribution, and is not particularly desirable: All outcomes are equal, and there is no opportunity.

So what we are looking for is that distribution of physical and social resources and opportunities, which most enables society to take advantage of its human resources. This is also the one that allows the greatest opportunity for individual advancement.

Individuals with superior abilities are born at all levels of society. For a society to prosper and compete, it must take advantage of these individuals. To do this, society must invest in these individuals. It must capitalize them. This requires different capital inputs at different stages in individual development.

The most important investment in human capital is in childhood, when the individual must be convinced of the desirability to capitalize himself: To invest time and effort into his own future, as a valuable and valued individual and citizen. First he must have the example of parents and neighbors, which means they themselves must receive adequate reward for effort and initiative. They must have opportunity for, and there must be examples of, advancement. Opportunity, to be taken advantage of, must first be perceived. This depends on the wealth of the community in which the individual is raised. A poor community will have few examples of success, many examples of failure.

The quality of the schools depends on the wealth of the community. In general, poor communities have poor schools: Undercapitalized institutions trying to instruct under-acculturated children. This is especially the case where there is no mixing of funds from other, wealthier communities, as through state wide tax support for education. Many superior individuals in inferior schools will be discouraged.

If the slope of wealth and opportunity is too steep, only the very best will be able to navigate it. And they likely will not get to the most suitable places for themselves. And even these will require some opportunity. Since opportunity is distributed, many of the best with inferior opportunity will not succeed within the parameters of their society, but will find themselves trapped at the bottom. This happens in the best of circumstances, but is aggravated with a mal-distribution of wealth and opportunity. Where there are inadequate avenues of advancement, the management of society will be left to the children of the previous generation of the successful, who will tend to have regressed to the mean. Thus, the society will begin to be managed increasingly by the average and mediocre. This will put it at a disadvantage with respect to other societies. The alternative is to find superior agents, who will then be expected to labor without commensurate reward, on behalf of an aristocracy they cannot join, and who thus will have their own motives for mismanagement. They will also increasingly be opposed by superior individuals from the bottom. Many will be criminals, who will have found paths to legitimate power blocked.


The Right considers redistributive taxes as redistribution of rightful gain, whereas the Left should consider it redistribution of capital. The right would then claim that those with the income have shown they know where to invest capital, since they have received the gains from it. The left would maintain that much of those gains come from the common capital, and must be reinvested in common capital for the common welfare of society, of which the individual is a part.

The whole point of the wealthy sequestering their wealth, isolating it from redistribution, is to secure opportunity for themselves and secure for themselves and their children the effective hereditary privileges of an Aristocracy. This necessarily reduces opportunity available to the non- wealthy. From their point of view, this is reasonable, since opportunity is necessarily also the opportunity to compete with the wealthy. Indeed, the inheritance tax could be called an opportunity tax., since it’s purpose is to prevent the perpetuation of a Plutocracy, and to open up the paths of power to others.

The Right is not really interested in the survival of their society as a society. They pursue the interests of persons as individuals, in particular the wealthy.
So society for its survival, must find the proper gradient of wealth and power, that those individuals all along the power spectrum are continually replaced by those of appropriate ability.